


Winter of Discontent

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Wild Wild West (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-19
Updated: 2008-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:15:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1633445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Story by Kat Reitz</p><p>Artie couldn't remember being so happy that a mission was over as he was this one, and there was a long list of things he never wanted to relive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winter of Discontent

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to Perryvic for finishing this story off with me, and to Tzi and Shewhoguards for providing the beta.
> 
> Written for vertigomac

 

 

He could feel every shift of his horse's body. Cinnamon was a good, smooth-running horse, but he still felt every damn motion, from his backside right up to the base of his neck. 

Artie couldn't remember being so happy that a mission was over as he was this one, and there was a long list of things he never wanted to relive, no way, no how. It was funny how most of them involved being tied up spread eagled, or stuck in a cage. James was best on those missions, with the strength to break a rope with a flex of his arm. That was why he did it, and God knew what trouble he'd gotten into since Artie had been off on his own for a few months. 

The Wanderer was still where he'd been told it was, so at least that meant there'd been no emergencies in the last two days. He drove Cinnamon up close to the stable car, and every muscle in his back cried out when he reached for the bar to pull himself up. It was late, and if James wasn't sleeping then he was probably out on the town. Either way, the engineers were sleeping and someone needed to put Cinnamon into the stable car. 

Looked like it was going to have to be him, no matter how weary and tired he was. James's horse was there, which was one indication that he was there somewhere and not propping up a bar. Every now and then, behind the fake smiles and words of his disguise, he'd thought about James. Wondered if there had been some spectacular mess he'd gotten himself into that actually needed him there to unravel. It was both likely and unlikely when it came to James West. He attracted trouble but had the luck of the devil. If there was a tight squeeze he could wedge himself into, well, there was usually a tight squeeze he could wedge himself out of. 

Artie let down the ramp for Cinnamon, and guided his horse up into the car. It was miserable to have to do it when he was that exhausted, but someone had to take the saddle and bridle off of him, brush him down and make sure he got his feed. 

He was so absorbed in the process that he didn't initially notice someone enter the stable car behind him, not until Cinnamon 'hrumphed' and eyeballed someone over his shoulder. 

"You're back." 

"Oh, hey, Jim." He turned a little, glancing back over his shoulder at James, and waved the curry comb at him. "I just rode up." 

"I heard." Jim was stepping into the lamplight, and he looked ...fine. Remnant of some scratch on his face, slight favoring of his right shoulder but that sort of thing was par for the course. "Beginning to wonder if you'd got lost, Artie." 

If he'd got lost. Sometimes, he wondered if he _could_  get lost, or what would happen if he did, because for a team, the two of them were off on their own often enough. "Well, James my boy, you know how the theatre is. Two month run-up to a three week show." 

"Mm. And how was the show?" Jim asked, and it seemed like an ordinary question, but Artie didn't like the way he was watching him, studying him in a way that was more than a little disturbing. 

James was good, too good, at looking at a person, and sizing them up -- their strengths, their weakness. "Received with raves. I'm the new Richard the Second you know, James." 

"Theatre royalty." Jim moved closer and reached to help him. "Here, let me see to Cinnamon. You head on inside." 

That was a bit uncharacteristic. They saw to their own horses, it was just something that they did. 

"Oh, uh.." He hesitated, and handed the curry comb over. "Sure, that's mighty kind of you, James." It was _strange_ , and not at all what he was used to, and it made him want to cringe. What he'd been used to lately hadn't been quite like that, either, and his head was a wreck now. 

He'd seen backstages that were tidier on closing night than his head was right now. 

"You can pour me a drink of the good stuff. There's dinner there as well if you want to help yourself." James said as he turned to dealing with the horse. "I'll be in, in a bit. You just... relax." 

Relax like the damned souls in hell might when Satan donned ice-skates. Artemus looked over his shoulder at Jim, and then popped open the door at the back of the car to cross over to the two living quarters cars. It was cold out, which was only something he noticed when he wasn't getting the exercise of the ride. It was cold, and he was tense, but there was a cooling version of dinner to be had. 

It did occur to him to wonder why James would have extra dinner there. There were a couple of options; either he was giving him his own, or he had been getting extra made while not knowing when he was coming back. 

He wasn't actually sure what to do with the implications of either scenario. 

Well, there was the third option, that James had been entertaining lady friends, but if that was the case, then James wouldn't have been out there in the stable car, putting Cinnamon to rest. Artemus sniffed the air of their main room, and upon deciding that he didn't smell perfume, put together a plate from the remains of the pot. 

Being back inside the Wanderer was comforting and slightly disturbing. He could feel something trying to unravel inside his head. It was like the breakdown of a show; he needed to strike the set in his mind, close the tabs and let the stage fall silent. His packs contained the costumes, the disguises, but this time it felt like he was still wearing them and they were clinging to his skin. He couldn't shed this role easily for all his chameleon skills. 

He'd been in it too long, costumed twice over -- once as Richard II, which was a thrilling role for any actor to play, and once again as Andrew Graph, Actor, occasional lay about,  and sodomite. The double layering had to be the problem. 

Roles could bleed across. Richard the Second was a tragic figure, flawed and Andrew Graph had to play him as betrayed and vulnerable while trying to be strong in the face of rebellion and consequences of his actions to attract the attention of his specific target audience. 

And then there had been the playing of Andrew Graph -- passionate, obsessive, but with his pleasures, and an obsession towards them as deep as his obsession for perfecting a role. It had been perfect for seducing Antoin Ortiz, for getting into _his_ head. 

Oh, it had been a perfect seduction. He'd stood out from the troupe in the mantle of glittering nobility that playing Richard II cast over him, speaking to the man's need to follow a cause, to right wrongs, to reclaim lost power. And then he lured him in with a vibrancy and charisma that enchanted the man, having a license to seduce or in fact, let himself be seduced as Andrew Graph.

Antoin had thought he was doing all of the work, when all he'd actually been doing was following the carefully written steps of Artemus's play. He'd 'seduced' Andrew, they'd had a whirlwind affair, and Andrew was the clinging, weaseling sort, the type of man who asked the right questions in the easiest ways and ended up getting all of the information the government needed to stop American governors and senators from funding this uprising. As long as Mexico was stable, Uncle Sam wanted, needed to stay out of it. It was stable, whether Mariano Escobedo and his underlings liked who was in power or not. 

The mission was officially a great success. So why did he feel so...hollow? It wasn't the first time he'd been with a man, it wasn't the act itself. He was experienced at all of this, he wore disguises, slipped on personas for a period of time, but why did he feel so rootless and insubstantial?

Why now? He'd done it quite a bit before the war, during the war, after the war. After he was partnered with Jim, missions like that hadn't happened. He had other work to do, they were generally caught up in more exciting, pressing missions. They didn't have two or three months, but this had needed someone with his expertise. Someone who wouldn't flub it. Well, he hadn't. He'd passed his information on to the courier and now... 

Now he was playing with his dinner, feeling listless. 

He did over-think things sometimes. It was a hazard of adopting personalities and honing his skills, but everything he knew told him he should be moving on from this. Maybe it was the fact that it was harking back to the good old bad old days where he spread his legs easier than any paid whore dressed in make-up and corsets. In fact, there had been that time with the make-up and corsets, but then it had just been a case of move on, move on, your country needs you to have sex and it won't ask the details as long as you get what's needed. 

Maybe he'd gotten past those days and the rest of him hadn't noticed it yet. He wasn't a young handsome man anymore, and while he didn't care, it also carried the implication with it that he couldn't just shrug it off like he'd done years ago. That was bad, because maybe one day he wouldn't be able to do what needed to be done and what if lives hung in the balance? They'd done some pretty crazy things, him and Jim and one day luck was going to run out. Maybe he should quit...no, he couldn't quit. He had a partner, you didn't quit on a partner.

"Cinnamon is all settled," Jim said, managing to sneak up on him again. 

Artemus startled, and he waved a fork at James. "You shouldn't sneak up on a man like that, Jim. It'll shorten your life. What have you been up to while I was gone?" 

"Oh you know, bit of this, bit of that," Jim answered moving over to get the whiskey out. "You want some?" 

"Mm, please. I think I've missed the creature comforts of the Wanderer. Hot meals, lavish furnishings, all the weapons a man could want hidden in said furniture, good liquor..." He started eating, trying to put up the facade of complete normality. 

"Hard life being an actor," Jim commented and the whiskey he poured and handed over was exceptionally generous, "Here. It was a... gift for something I did while you were away." An expensive gift if the smell was anything to go by.

"Pretty lady, or grateful politician?" Artemus asked, lifting it to his mouth and just breathing for a moment before he swallowed a sip. Nice deep, woody blend, a little sweet. Very nice. 

"Pretty lady who was the grateful wife of a not-dead politician, " Jim answered, drinking a little of his own. "So. You going to tell me what happened?" 

He took another sip. "No, not if I don't have to. I got the intel I was sent for, and I'm back here in the Wanderer." 

"Artie, you look like shit." That was... well, that was uncharacteristically blunt of James. He didn't think he looked that bad, or maybe James was that good at seeing him. 

It was enough to make him reach up and self consciously rub a hand across his own jaw line. "Yeah, well. The old work doesn't agree with me the way it used to." 

"I take it you're not talking about the acting part of it then," Jim stated as opposed to asked. "So what the hell is this about?" 

"If I tell you, James, we're both probably going to be looking for other work." He spread his hands apart, still holding onto the shot-glass, and balancing his dinner on his knee. "You don't want to know, and I don't want to talk about it." 

For a moment he thought that had cut off the conversation completely. He'd intended that to happen, and then he could concentrate on pretending it didn't happen, didn't hurt, didn't matter. Jim, it seemed, had a different idea. 

"I'm asking as a friend Artie," he said finally. "Just between us. It's not like you haven't had to deal with me before." 

Nightmares and flashbacks yes, whoring, no. 

"Look, Jim. It's tasteless work, and I don't think you want to hear about it and despite your insistence, I don't want to talk about it." He just wanted to eat, just wanted to relax. 

"The offer is there," Jim said. "Eat. You've lost weight." 

He snorted, and set the glass on the side table so he could better handle his fork and his plate. For Jim, of all people, to hound him about eating. But for silence? Artemus would do anything. He wasn't surprised when Jim got up again, retrieving the bottle of liquor to top off Artemus's glass. 

Jim didn't push him then, just got out some of their best drink, and settled in as if he had no intention of going anywhere. He didn't interrupt his eating either, just sipping at his own whiskey and watching him. It was the watching part that bothered him, more than anything. He'd spent quite a bit of time being watched, and now it made him nervous because he wasn't putting on airs or trying to project a personality that wasn't his.

"Just come out and say it, James." 

"You want me to ask now?" Jim replied looking at him. "Seriously, Artie, what do you think I'm going to do if you tell me the truth?" 

He reached for the glass, and took a deeper sip off of the edge. "I don't know. It's sort of a novel situation, having someone who cares enough to ask but probably actually doesn't want to know." 

"Dammit, Artie," Jim said with a hint of heat. "I wouldn't ask if I didn't want to know." 

He knew that the next step of Jim, when he was angry, was to storm off. Or physical confrontation. "There's an exiled Mexican defense minister who was getting money from Americans, certain high ranking Americans, to try to overthrow the standing Mexican government. We have a good relationship with that government, and we can't have one hand doing something that the head doesn't approve of. I... infiltrated them, got close to one of them, and got the intel we needed." 

"When you say got close...." That was subtle for James, but he couldn't imagine that Jim would just accept what he was going to say without ruining everything. 

"One of the minister's close confidants is a sodomite. I got close." He set his plate aside while he said it, waiting for Jim's reaction. 

Jim didn't seem that surprised or disgusted. Not what he was expecting at all. He'd been expecting averted eyes, a flinch away at best. Possible outright disgust and revulsion and aggression. 

Artemus downed the rest of the glass, and looked at Jim again. "So, it's over and done with and I'm back." 

"Back and looking like shit," Jim said again. "Is that what you were afraid of telling me? Either you're less observant than I thought, or I'm better at subterfuge than I thought. 

"Given that it's two steps above whoring, and that might be me flattering myself, yes, I was afraid to mention it to you. I'm sure you're about to tell me a story of how you did worse when you were with General Grant." And if he was, Artemus wasn't too keen on hearing it. 

"No story," Jim said. "Not this time. You did the job, Artie, I'm not going to disrespect the sacrifice you made for the mission by being a bigot." 

Well. Artie set the empty glass down, and sat back. "I appreciate that. If you don't mind, I'm going to turn in for the night." 

"Artie," Jim seemed to hesitate. "I've never seen it affect you like this... why?" He seemed peculiarly intent on the answer. "Do you hate the idea of it so much?" 

"It's..." Artemus waved a hand, trying to brush the topic away, though he knew it wouldn't work. "I disliked the person. Quite a bit." 

"So if you had liked the person...?" Jim asked still clinging to the topic with his characteristic annoying tenacity. 

"Yes, I suppose it wouldn't be problematic. Except for the moral qualm of having been sent there to ultimately extract information." 

Jim leaned over and poured him more drink. "So you don't mind doing it with someone you can...tolerate?" 

"No, no. I mean, if you're curious, it's not -- it's enjoyable. When it's not work-related." He felt himself turning flustered, because Jim, well, Jim was a ladies' man, and while Artemus could understand curiosity... 

"I'm not curious," Jim replied lazily and that could've been him saying that he didn't want to know except for the long slow smile spreading over his face. 

It was hard to not stare at Jim, and he decided to down his new drink. "James..." 

"I'm not as good at reading people as you are but you seem to have some sort of of block when it comes to reading that about me," Jim said. "Or, as I thought, you literally were oblivious." 

"Oh, are you--" He started to laugh, rubbing a hand over his face, and that was insane. That was him laughing, because he couldn't do anything but laugh just then. 

Jim chuckled along with him, and looked directly at him smiling. "Yes. Not exclusively but... yes." 

He peered through his fingers, trying to get himself to calm down, to shake off the hysterical edge, because _James_. James. James, like that, and it was a beautiful picture in his head. "No, this is some strange dream." 

"Possibly a nightmare for some," Jim admitted knocking back a big mouthful of the whisky. 

Artemus snorted, and stretched his hands out in front of him. "No, you're -- you're kidding. Why tell me this...?" 

Jim looked at him. "You were the one thinking I would report you, get you arrested. Thought it might help you right now to see things in a different light." 

"Right." He exhaled slowly, still watching Jim, and finally felt a tension in his stomach un-knot, and he hadn't known it was there. "Right. Thank you, James." 

"You still look like shit though," Jim said after a decent gulp of whiskey. That had to burn going down. "What bothers you about it?" 

"I dislike being reduced to that. It used to be easier to bear, but I've done so much more in the past, oh, decade or so." He wasn't sure he had to explain that, but apparently. 

"You're not a whore, Artie," Jim answered. "I don't see how anyone could think of you like that." 

"It was what I was doing for the last two months." It was hard to not sound a little sharp when he said that. "I... I need to go wash up after the ride and get some sleep." 

"You don't need help?" Jim offered politely enough, even if it was a bit of an odd answer. 

Artemus tilted his head slightly at Jim, and then it clicked. That, that was absurd and fantastic and ill-timed, all bundled together to replace that knot in his chest. "Why, James. Are you propositioning me?"

Any other time Jim might've made a joke and brushed it off with banter and repartee, but not this time. 

"What do you think?" he said eventually. 

"I think you are," he answered after he'd taken a moment or two to analyze the quality of that pause. "I, you, uh. Could help." 

"I said I would help," Jim answered. "If that's what you want. I'm not someone to force myself on someone." 

And he knew that. He knew that possibly better than he'd trusted his instinct that Jim wouldn't turn him over to any authorities. "I know. I do need the help -- that damn ride was long, and I probably did it in too short a time. Cinnamon's going to need at least a couple of days to recover." 

"Think you might need longer," Jim said. "I was... concerned about you, Artie. Even more when I saw you." 

"I haven't seen a mirror," he grinned at Jim, trying to stand up, carefully, from the chair. "Oof." 

"Here," and Jim was there, warm hands on his arm helping to steady him. "Let me... get you to bed." 

There was a safety in having a friend like that, when Artemus had never needed, never really wanted, friends like that before. People who looked at his interests more than their own. "Sorry about this. We should do something about this particular revelation sometime soon." 

"When you've got the strength to keep up," Jim answered and paused, stopping their forward motion. "Artie..." 

He turned a little, lifted his head, and it was perfect, actually. Stage perfect. All he needed was the lights, to be near a curtain call, and for a swell of dramatic music from the band. Artemus leaned in to kiss him. 

Oh, he couldn't say he'd pined away for Jim, he hadn't been indulging in melodramatic unrequited love for his partner, but there had been times when his gaze had slid along the curve of Jim's lip and over the edge of his jaw and the need to taste them had been shocking in its intensity. Now he had the chance and his answer, and this was no performance or staged version. His lips were smoky alcohol and burned with liquor. He'd seen him kiss women and this was different.

This was slower, didn't feel like it was for show, and maybe it was a tiny bit awkward, the moment where they worked out who was moving their head, tilting for a better pressure, where helpful support turned into an embrace. 

The only times James had held him like this before, he had been hurt or injured, but there was something sweetly fierce in the way he held him as if just by standing there, kissing him, he was encircling him in some unseen protection. 

The kiss burned, their stubble rasped a little against each other as they shifted. 

Artemus finally pulled back, and couldn't help but grin a little. "Hell of a way to try to talk a man out of sleep, Jim." 

"I've got plenty more to say," Jim answered not letting go of him. 

"How much more to say?" Artie tilted his head, not pulling back. 

Jim put fingers around the nape of his neck, curling through his hair in a way that reached through his fatigue. "Oh, you know me, I can be pretty damn talkative." 

"I'm listening to your argument." He was encouraging it, yes, and he was exhausted, but Jim was moving him towards the sleeping quarters. 

"There are a few more points I'd like to go over in detail," Jim murmured. "It may take a while." He smiled a little. "Like, another thirty years." 

Heh. Artemus sat on the edge of the bed while Jim lowered him to the small bed. "I could put up with that sort of depth." 

Jim just smiled at him, pushing him gently back. None of the fake sensation or lust, none of the hollowness that he hated, that tainted him. Jim was warmth, and strength touching him with a gentleness that he rarely showed, but with a intensity that he did frequently see. 

He wasn't too surprised that Jim stayed upright while Artemus laid back. "Ah, I see I've been lured to bed in the most innocent sense of the word." 

"Mmm. You sleep, and when you have a bit more strength, then things will be much less innocent," Jim promised, and he leaned in and kissed him again. 

It wasn't going to magically erase what had happened, but it did bring warmth to the cold hollow sensation he had been feeling inside. It did strike a spark just when he thought he'd killed all desire. But the strangest thing of all was a new feeling that had maybe been there all the time.

 


End file.
